‘Computer programs are not patentable’
Sony cannot patent inventions in the UK that remove the anonymity of the peer-to-peer (P2P) user experience and put social networking at the heart of file-sharing.
The Patent Office ruled last week that the inventions are not eligible for patents.
Sony filed two patent applications for complementary inventions. One describes a means of exchanging information between computers or other devices in a network. The other describes ways of using that information.
The application for the “system and method for reviewing received digital content” describes building a web community.
When a P2P user downloads a piece of content from another user’s computer, be it a song or a game or a movie, he normally knows nothing about that user ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú or where that user obtained the content. Sony’s proposal would change that experience.
Sony describes a method for attaching a user history to content when it is shared among computers or other devices. When one user downloads a song, he can see who had it last and what he thought about it.
Full article: The Register
